NOTES

The British instrument of ratification does not give the exact date of its execution; the month and year are given, but the place for the day of the month is blank.

A facsimile of the United States instrument of ratification in the British archives is now in the Department of State file. It includes a signed original of the treaty; so the agreement was signed at least in triplicate, for there is an original in the Department of State file, from which the text here printed is taken.

With the facsimile of the ratification is a facsimile of a certificate, signed by Pickering on October 6, 1796, and under the seal of the Department of State, acknowledging the delivery of the British instrument of ratification on that date. A copy of this paper is in D. S., 9 Domestic Letters, 322; and at page 345 is a copy of a similar certificate, executed on the same day by Bond (the original of which has not been found), from which it appears that the United States instrument of ratification was delivered to him on May 9, 1796, the date of its execution; and it seems that a duplicate was delivered on May 10 (ibid., 111); but the exchange of ratifications was completed on October 6,1796.

The original proclamation has not been found; the text of the treaty itself was published at the time; it is in The Laws of the United States, Folwell ea., II, 496-98 (printed in 1796); that edition was official in the strict sense, as it was issued pursuant to the act of March 3,1795 (1 Statutes at Large, 443); but no print of the proclamation, as such, has been noticed except that printed in English, with a French translation, in Martens, Recueil des principaux traites, 1st ea., VI, 600-5, and 2d ea., V, 696-703. The proclamation appears to have been in the usual form, with the signature of President Washington, the attest of Pickering as Secretary of State, and the Great Seal.

Source:
Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America.
Edited by Hunter Miller
Volume 2
Documents 1-40 : 1776-1818
Washington : Government Printing Office, 1931.